


One Man, Two Biscuits

by Zabbers



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Jamie is brazenly wanton, M/M, Promptfic, and Julius is a saint, becomes OT3, but not without some fighting and pissy biscuits, flashfic, in which Malcolm messes up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 07:24:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15068093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zabbers/pseuds/Zabbers
Summary: 10) Who is more likely to cheat? 17) Who is more protective?





	One Man, Two Biscuits

The biscuit box emerges from Malcolm’s suitcase somewhat the worse for wear, bright yellow and adorned with the image of (happy? Were they happy?) girls in Guides’ sashes. Julius handles the collapsed rectangle like it’s a brick that someone has smashed through his front window. He purses his lips.

“What, may I ask, are these?”

“They’re ‘Girl Scout cookies’.” Malcolm takes the container and turns it over and over in his fingers, inspecting it for Julius’ benefit. “Look, they’re lemon; they’re your favourite.”

“Hmm.” Look, indeed. Malcolm has never brought Julius a gift from abroad before, and his beginning to do so now only sparks unease in the tinder that has been piling itself at Julius’ feet for weeks. He’s kept mum up to now, but it spills out of him, past the practiced diplomacy that never seems to stand much of a chance in the face of Julius’ feelings vis-à-vis Malcolm Tucker. “Why have you brought me biscuits?”

“I thought you’d fucking like them!” Already, the whites of Malcolm’s eyes are expanding, his shoulders tense in obvious anticipation of a fight. “If you don’t want them, I’ll just pop back onto the plane, shall I, and tell the taxi driver at Dulles to drive around the American capital until we track down the little girl who sold me the cookies so that I can put them back on her folding table with the brown paper banner on it and demand to watch while her friends take turns shoving the rejected _cookies_ down her throat for losing them the four dollars for their marshmallow sandwiches at the next bonfire jamboree? Should I do that?”

Malcolm’s tirade is calculated to cow its victim, but Julius’ relationship with him is built on tit for tat; he’d have got nowhere with Malcolm if he’d ever backed down this easily. The overreaction itself only confirms to Julius that something is awry. Something is rotten. He’s let it go for too long. It eats at him. It’s eating at Malcolm, too.

Julius snatches the biscuits, deliberately moving into Malcolm’s space. He works his finger under the flap, the flimsy and cheap cardboard impossible not to rip in the process. Inside is a translucent baggie of lumpen semicircles, the plastic smeared with a layer of cakey powder. He’s careful opening the bag, and careful removing one of the biscuits, but it’s too large to put in his mouth all at once, and unexpectedly hard, which might have been rather pleasant in another context, but in this one produces the unfortunate flurry of icing sugar that settles onto his lapel.

More significant, however, is the flavour. The mouthfeel. The overall experience. The lemon is bright, brighter than the box art, brighter than any lemon known to man. It is brighter than Julius’ memories of the _sfusato amalfitano_ groves, overhanging the sea wall, the sun doubled by the water’s surface. (It’s a brightness more in line with the sunburn he nursed afterwards, his head hot all afternoon even in the dimness of the tile-lined bar.) That the biscuit is hard is not so offputting--it only needs a bit of tea--but the starchy sugar dusting it coats his tongue and the dome of his mouth like wet chalk. He opens it involuntarily as the powder hits his nose and the back of his throat, spluttering a cloud of the white dust and crumbs in Malcolm’s direction.

“...Did you do that on purpose?”

“Perhaps I did. What would you say to that?”

Malcolm looks apoplectic, and possibly like he might take the remaining bag and dump them over Julius’ head. Before he can do that, Julius drops them to the floor and grabs Malcolm by the tie. Malcolm tries to twist away, but not before Julius sees the marks under his collar.

They can’t back away from each other quickly enough. It’s suddenly very quiet.

“Malcolm?”

Malcolm smiles a sick little smile, the one that twists his face so fleetingly when he knows he’s fucked, and he’s been complicit in his own fucking.

He has the nerve to think, first, about what he’s going to say.

“I, uhm...listen, I shouldn’t have taken Jamie to Washington; I’m sorry. But I needed him.”

Julius can’t say that he’s surprised.

 

The Isle of Mull lemon melts appear on his desk festooned with a strange ribbon. Unlike the American offering, these biscuits are among Julius’ favourites, a pleasure guilty for the creamy white chocolate half-enrobing the golden rounds like a dressing gown worn open at the chest, fully a quarter of the weight of the biscuit as a whole. This can’t be Malcolm--Malcolm and Julius haven’t spoken since the night Malcolm returned from Washington, and he’s a stubborn bastard, not to mention incapable of admitting he knows what biscuits Julius actually likes--but it could be his secretary, perhaps?

Julius opens the box, delighting as always in the line art printed on the inside, the chubby little Moray Firth dolphins especially. He realises he ought to fetch a plate, and that a cup of the expensive tea would go a treat with the buttery indulgences. As he gathers the tea things from his cabinet, the ball strainer and the timer and the tin of afternoon blend, he acknowledges that the biscuits have brought an island of contentment in an otherwise stormy month.

But it is a contentment that’s shattered as soon as he walks into the kitchen. There, in his shirtsleeves, arms crossed, leaning against the doorjamb and lying in wait as casually as you please, is Jamie MacDonald.

“I figured you’d want a cup of tea with your biscuits,” Jamie says.

Julius doesn’t care for the implications of Jamie’s presence, but-- “ _You_ gave me those biscuits?”

“Aye.”

Julius bends to his task, trying to navigate around Jamie as he empties the kettle, sloshes clean water around in it, fills it up with fresh. “It doesn’t make anything better.”

Jamie’s voice is serious, though Julius can’t see his face. “No, no it doesn’t. Julius, what Malc and I did was unforgiveable--”

“--What you did.”

“Och, now, I wouldn’t describe it like that.” He steps into the narrow kitchen. “Malcolm was a fully participating _member_ of the act in question.”

“That is puerile, James, and can you please get out of my…” Julius just wants to make his tea, and Jamie being in his way means that in order to avoid spilling the precious leaves, he’s forced to brush up against him, an act both distressing and electric. “Get out of my way.”

Jamie swells forward like he’s going to get further into Julius’ space, glaring up at him, but then he stops and backs off a step.

“Look, I know Malcolm’s probably already said for himself, but I’m sorry too. I love him.”

Of all the words that could have come out of Jamie’s mouth--and there are so many: ruder ones, angrier ones, more violent ones--these are the ones Julius doesn’t want to hear. These are the ones, the only ones, that pose a threat.

“He isn’t yours to love.”

The kettle’s burbling, and the switch pops up. Jamie pushes it down. It pops up. He pushes it down again.

“I know, I know. Only…shit.” Jamie holds up a finger, thinking, licks his lips, drops his hands to his hips, holds up his finger again. He looks strangely pleased with himself. “Shit!”

“Oh, no.” Julius groans.

“I love him, I fucking do. You love him. He loves us. You and I” --Jamie shoves his finger first against Julius’ chest and then his own-- “are reasonably attracted to each other.”

“No, no…”

Jamie grins. “Malcolm’s a pair of unworn knickers in a Morningside chest drawer compared to me--you’d see.”

It is at this moment that Malcolm bursts into the very small kitchen, all bluster and ire, and inserts himself between Julius and Jamie.

“What d’you think you’re doing here, you wee fucker? I thought I told you to stay _away_ from Julius, that this is _my_ problem. I will fucking deal with it. You will leave him _alone_. Did you not understand me? Or do I have to open up your skull and fucking wank the comprehension directly into what passes for a reptile hindbrain at the top of your underdeveloped brain stem?”

Over Malcolm’s shoulder, Julius sees Jamie’s eyes flash, full of hurt, but then he also sees Jamie gird his loins and speak right past Malcolm and his tirade, continuing what Julius supposes is his seduction…

“Of course, we’d have to do a feasability study, but now that all the stakeholders are in the room, I think you’ll agree that this is a project worth pursuing. For the greater good.”

Julius considers the proper biscuits still on his desk. The desolation of having been _left alone_ to Malcolm’s conflict resolution strategy. The men crammed into this cupboard of a room with him, vibrant with passionate energy. Both of them. He thinks of the touch of Jamie’s hand, combines it, in his internal Visioning, with the beloved touch of Malcolm’s. He thinks of the things they’ve said: _I needed him._

_He loves us._

Julius rolls the word around in his mouth. Already, he’s said it, many times, for Malcolm (as well as for himself). He rests his hand on Malcolm’s arm.

“Yes,” he says, nodding, forgiving. “Yes.”


End file.
